


Small Blessings

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Pregnancy, act 3 somewhere, and that's okay too, complicated people living complicated lives, sometimes the right choice isn't easy and that's okay, we just make the best decisions with what we've got
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 03:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17675189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: Hawke visits a healer and receives complicated news.





	Small Blessings

The news turned her tongue to cotton, dry and fat in her mouth.

“Are… are you sure, Danica? You’re absolutely sure?” Hawke asked desperately, the teacup rattling in its saucer when she put it down too hard upon the table. “I have a lot of scar tissue, damage—”

A wave of sympathy smoothed over the healer’s face. She took Hawke’s hand in her own and pet it gently. “I’ve been a healer for longer than you’ve been alive, dear girl,” Danica said, “and a mother just as long, I’d wager. You’re two months in, give or take a week.”

Hawke reeled and shoved away from the table. It was too much, too wrong. Her stomach lurched as if the tiny life inside her belly wanted to make itself known. Hawke hung her head in her hands.

“I… take it this isn’t welcome news,” Danica said diplomatically. She shuffled in her seat across the small table, hands folded along its surface. “Does the father know?”

Hawke’s voice broke into a tremulous laugh. “Maker, no.” She pressed a fisted hand to her mouth. “I… I can’t tell him. Not now.”

_Not ever,_ she thought with growing despair. Anders had spent longer and longer nights scribbling in his journals, binding the copies of his manifesto as fast as he could produce them. He spent most of his time with the splintering remnants of the Mage Underground, the stench of revolution as thick as chokedamp on the rare nights he came home to the estate instead of tucking himself in his clinic or wherever else his secret life had taken him for the small hours of the mornings.

He was… different now, in a way that Hawke couldn’t quantify but that smelled like ozone and sulphur, one that sent bells careening wildly in terror in the depths of her heart. _Vengeance,_ Anders had once called it, crying into her shoulder, and he had nearly shaken apart at the mere idea.

Hawke could barely recognize him anymore.

The healer’s voice broke into her spiraling thoughts. “What?” Hawke asked blearily. She wiped her face of the tears that dripped from her chin.

“I said, there are things we can do to help with your situation. If now isn’t the right time.”

Hawke pushed a lank lock of hair from her brow and straightened. “Is there ever a right time for children in Kirkwall?” she asked bitterly. “No, that was uncalled for. I’m sorry.” She shook her head and looked up at the older woman. Warm brown eyes stared back with a surgeon’s attention, a healer through and through.

“Please,” she said. Her fingers twisted anxiously in the thin fabric of the tablecloth. “I can’t do this.”

Danica nodded. She gave a last soft pat to Hawke’s hand and rose to disappear from her line of sight, leaving Hawke to her racing thoughts.

Anders would have said something if he knew. He hadn’t been home more than a handful of times in the last few months, and even that was mostly to take a furtive bath or to hole himself away in the library to frantically collate another copy of Justice’s manifesto before running off again.

_Their_ manifesto, he always objected.

_“It’s as much my work as his. We do this together.” Fire burned in his eyes as he spoke, his words hard and clipped. “I can’t stand idly by, not while my fellow mages suffer.”_

_“And what of you, Anders?” Hawke’s hand rose of its own accord to the sharp line of his jaw. He didn’t turn into the touch as he usually did, giving a shallow shake of his head. She rubbed her thumb along his cheekbone. “You don’t eat, you hardly sleep, and I never see you anymore. When will you rest? You promised—”_

_“You don’t understand, I have work to do.” He pulled away and paced, his hands pulling at his hair. “I make a difference here, Hawke. I have to do this.”_

_“Can’t more of your fellows share the burden?”_

_“They cannot do what needs to be done.”_

_A chill crawled up her spine at the tone, heavy and dark and tinged with raw power._

_He turned to her, eyes blazing blue-white, the Fade crackling along his skin. Anders strode forward. “They need direction. Leadership. I provide.”_

_“Justice—” Hawke backed away quickly, her shorter strides no match for Anders’ long legs. “He tells you—helps you in this?”_

_Her hips met the blunt edge of the writing desk and her heart crawled up into her throat. Still, he approached, power emanating from him like heat from the nearby fire. Anders stopped less than a breath away, his focus narrowed to her face as he searched there._

_“Let me work, Hawke, and we’ll come back to you, I promise,” he said beseechingly. Justice faded from his skin with a soft rush of mana even she could feel, so close as they were. Anders’ hands gripped her shoulders. “You… you are my home.”_

_“Then stay,” Hawke breathed. “Just… stay here, with me.” She reached out with a shaking hand to pull him close and press her brow to his. Her voice was a husky rasp when she spoke again. “Please, Anders. I miss you.”_

_Anders was quiet for a span of breaths, trembling where he stood. She could feel him nearly buckle; a cautious hope rose in her, only to be dashed when his shoulders slumped in a sigh._

_“I can’t, love. I have work to do.” Anders brushed a soft kiss to her temple before pulling away. “I’ll be back soon, don’t wait up.”_

It had been weeks since she had seen him last, there in the library.

Danica came back, a small bundle in hand. “Take one of these a day with food for three days. You’ll feel sick, crampings, and perhaps a bit of pain. You’ll bleed to pass it and then it will be over.” She peeled back the paper to reveal a trio of small balls the size of Orlesian bonbons, somehow powdery and sticky-looking at the same time. “I suggest a nice, long bath and lots of wine, personally.”

Hawke numbly deposited them in the bag at her belt. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely. She rose reached for her purse only to be waved off.

“Consider it a blessing. Kirkwall is hard on all of us, and, I suspect, even more so on you.” Danica cleared the table of their tea service. “If you have a mind, find the refugee co-op and make a donation there; Darktown needs whatever coin you’ve got more than I do. Though,” she mused, “you’re friends with the healer down there, aren’t you? You know as well as I already.”

A strangled noise tore from Hawke’s throat and she coughed to cover it. “Yeah, I’ll do that,” she said faintly. “I—I’ve gotta go. Thanks for… everything.” Danica may have said something else but Hawke was too numb to hear it, shoving herself into her coat and all but running from the small Lowtown house.

==

A week of cramping and intermittent nausea, and then a heavy bleed not unlike the usual monthly event. That’s all it was, and Hawke felt sick at how glad she was after the bleeding stopped.

She buried herself in a downy cocoon of her bedding. Orana and Bodahn attended to the needs of her house; she could sleep as long as she wanted. As long as she needed.

The bedroom door creaked open and a shush of robes followed. Her heart lurched in her chest, a sweep of knives beneath her ribs. Hawke curled into herself beneath the heavy quilt as he moved about the room, adding another log to crackle in the hearth. Anders surprised her in eventually changing into pajamas and slipping into bed behind her.

“Hawke,” he breathed, molding himself along her back. “I’m home.” 

His hand slid over her hip to rest on her abdomen, smoothing up and down the network of scarring there as if in comfort, and he laid a soft kiss at the nape of her neck. Anders smiled into her skin and soon drifted to sleep, long limbs tangled around her.

He smelled of ozone, of bitter smoke and sulphur.

She stared ahead at the wall, mind carefully blank and eyes wet as she watched the firelight shift and play.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at [ocean-in-my-rebel-soul!](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments and concrit always appreciated! Thank you for reading!


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